Portugal pay-TV subs up 3.2%
December 12, 2017
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Portugal ended the third quarter of 2017 with 3.8 million pay-TV subscribers, representing an increase of 33,000 on the previous quarter and of 116,000 year-on-year (+3.2 per cent).
Data from the National Communications Authority (Anacom) shows that the growth was mostly due to fibre technology (FTTH/B), whose number of subscribers grew 27.3 per cent on Q3 2016, corresponding to the addition of over 269,000 new customers.
As a result fibre became the second most popular pay-TV distribution technology, accounting for 33.4 per cent of subscribers. Cable TV is still the main form of access, with 36.1 per cent, while xDSL and DTH are used by 15.7 per cent and 14.8 per cent of subscribers, respectively.
Of total pay-TV subscribers, 93.6 per cent subscribe to the service as part of a package (+8.2 per cent y/y).
NOS continues as market leader with 43 per cent of total subscribers, followed by Meo (38.1 per cent), Vodafone Portugal (14 per cent) and Nowo (4.7 per cent). Vodafone was the only operator to see customer growth in the quarter.
The popularity of streaming services, like Netflix, Fox Play, NPlay (NOS) or Amazon Prime Video, continues to grow in Portugal. At the end of September, 5.5 per cent of residents aged 10 years or over subscribed to at least one of these services (+2.3 per cent y/y).
On the other hand, premium channels lost subscribers. In the reference period, 15.5 per cent of pay-TV homes had access to premium channels (-0.7 per cent y/y).
Total revenues of pay-TV services in Q3 2017 amounted to €1.4 million (+4.7 per cent y/y).